fenrir72

1 hour ago, Firefox said:

Looks like MW forum is having a class war. I can feel for those who are being forced out by the pricing. I've been a Marcos's fan since the 80. When the news of 1/48 VF-1 comes out, all the fans were thrilling and drooling. And more importantly it was not that expensive and hard to get one. There wasn't any crazy pricing and crazy hours for pre-ordering. Everyone gets their pie then. The good old days. 

 

Some where along toward the demise of Yamato and step in from Arcadia, the pricing starts to go crazy, go way beyond 20000 yen a piece. While no one know the actual reason of the exponential price hike, there is always ones who thinks the hike is the result of those who keep paying regardless the price, just like Sydney properties market, if you live in Australia. There's also a sense of betrayal as they are part of those who supported Yamato's humble beginning in Macross journey only to be kept out of reach now. 

 

Luckily, Bandai steps in to fill the gap (15000 to 25000 yen). The only problem is it hard to get and that pushes the price up. For the quality and engineering efforts required by the toys, I don't think it is possible to go below 15000 yen but I don't think it worth more than 25000 yen either. 

 

For those who still think it is too expensive, there is or will be bootleg. I haven't actually seen one. I have a bootleg Ramjet and a Thrust masterpiece. The bootleg uses slightly more elastic type of plastic in those masterpieces, but it actually enhances the playability and durability. They cost half the price of the original . So, who knows, if the VF-1 bootleg follows the same route, it could be good for those who have limited disposable income. 

 

As a Macross fan, I hope anyone that loves Macross can have at least one of their favorite toy regardless of their income.

 

Happy collecting! 

Not only Macross but if you want a decent nostalgia modern release of super robot, the price level go around Y 18000 up. The good old days indeed when it was just half. Speaking of the not HMR Valks by Bandai, they're batsheet expensive and sell out with 30 seconds of solicitation......wtfrack?! 

Anyone know where we can get 1/100 official or non official decals for the Valkyries? For TF Masterpiece, Ocean Designs has that covered, but for HMR, I wonder where?

On 4/22/2017 at 10:35 PM, tekering said:

All this rampant customization has inspired me to do some work of my own:

I felt the Hi-Metal R GBP amor was a little too plain and lacking in detail, compared to my Arcadia, Yamato, and even Takatoku versions...

...so I added additional markings and insignia, using animation model sheet line art as a guide.

I especially wanted to replace Bandai's sloppy-looking "1" on the chest with something cleaner and more professional.

What do you think?

What decal set did you use? (my bad) it's home made decals. Sorry.

@OP

I have aveeeeeeeeeery limited Macross figs collection. Bandai re-issue of the Takatoku Super VF1S, Yamata VF1s 1/60 + armor,HMRs Monster, Regult and Glaug, VF1J armor, VF1J new ver,Max VF1j,VF1S Strike Valkyrie and the VF1A CF. Very limited eh?

But one thing I can say  being an avid TF G1 vintage owner, the quality is no less superior as no matter how much you care for you figs, the still/WILL BREAK on you.

My TF Godginrai year 2000 made in Japan re-issue broke on me after  15 years. without any manhandling. Just the act of transformation caused his ankle to break (the cab part). Same with Bigconvoy's plastic shoulder (left part). It was just on display when it fell off. Bad materials or bad luck. It's just part of the game I guess.

8 hours ago, arbit said:

There are a lot of questions on the boards about MOQs, licensing and manufacturing costs.

I thought that we could share our real data here to get to the bottom of it.

I will start with these responses I received from a premium toy manufacturer that is often discussed on this board. I wont name them for confidential reasons, but suffice it to say they are a medium level premium brand, not the best, not the worst:

------------------------------------------------------

What is the licensing fee: For the licensing cost, it will be ~4-6% of selling price in Japan. 

What is the manufacturing cost: Depends on item, but ~55% of selling price will be the production fee (including prototype charge)

How many units have you manufactured of different items? MOQ 3,000-5,000 pcs. If too cheap item, 10,000 pcs is necessary.

How many units do you need to sell to be profitable?  if over 3,000 pcs, nearly all items we can start to get profit

 

 

MOQ?

22 hours ago, sh9000 said:

Do you know what's the cheapest shipping option for the damaged box Monster?

Sal parcel

7 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

So what do you guys think will be the next websclusive?

 

Please make it a mass release!

3 hours ago, jenius said:

It's confusing but...

http://macross2.net/m3/sdfmacross/vf-1j-gbp.htm

So today we all just call it "GBP" to avoid that kind of confusion.

Hehehe I was right to consult you. Thanks for the link etc.

1 hour ago, easnoddy said:

I still need a HMR GBP-1S. Got in on thr 2nd release. Regretting not getting one when they were 13000 on mandrake...

Wasn't that GBP-1J? I'm confused!

2 hours ago, Tober said:

Yes. Raider X is the Robotech name for it.

Gott! Forgot about the Rt name. Thanks!

Is the Raider X and Defender the same? Scratching my noggin' 

6 hours ago, Sandman said:

Wow the vf1j with armour is going for 20000 yen now. That's crazy, you can buy a 1/60 for that price.

 

http://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1031816551&lang=en

And to think, amiami had some excess of those at rock bottom prices just after I scored one from hobbysearch.

The armored Valk is that high? Glad I managed to get one. Iirc, amiami had quite a few after the release for a month.

On 1/13/2017 at 6:55 AM, Sandman said:

 

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. If the spartan bombs, Bandai might not continue with the rest of the destroids.

It's been over two years and still just one Destroid! Hopefully Bandai releases them all!

7 hours ago, Lonely Soldier Boy said:

Sweet! Take your time. Actually I was being sarcastic since I just saw your Matchbox Destroids review and man were those lame toys! But if you're willing to give it a shot, I'll be delighted.  

Were those Matchbox versions repurposed? I mean, made for Japan or by Takatoku then re labelled for international release by Matchbox? I'm technically more of a TF guy than macross.

6 hours ago, Slave IV said:

Can you cancel from amiami with no reprecussions? I thought they didn't allow it.

I'll give you my experience with that. Amiami doesn't in general allow cancellation but they did allow me to cancel multiple times because I first informed them 3 months in advance. But I got a warning that if I keep on doing this, I would no longer be given priority when I pre-order their items.

If you order and then ignore payment requests, I think it's but natural that they would ignore future orders.

http://hlj.com/product/BANN11262

the stock hands are really trump-sized

Please leave real time politics out okay?

The Toynamis are excellent 5 feet VF-1 toys for display purposes... their appeal rapidly diminishes the closer you get.

They're that bad eh?

Toynami is not in the same league. If you have an HMR you will be unhappy with the 1/100s. The standalone toys are cheap and disposable so that is cool for some uses. The GBP release was pretty pricey for a Toynami in my opinion.

Thanks for the input.

Forgot to mention, the Toynami armored 1/100 are three figures for the 150 ish at BBTS. They must be wanting to get rid of them like pronto!

My only exposure to Toynami was the horrid VF1S Masterpiece. I got rid of it almost immediately. Anyway, without killing a dea horse, how's the quality of their 1/100 Valks? Aside from the VF1S limited HMR, I have all the latest HMR releases (Regault, Glaug, VF1J armored,VF1J,VF1J Max, VF1S Hikaru) is it even fair to compare them to that of Toynami's 1/100?

I'm asking is because I've seen the Armored ones at BBTS being offered for like US$ 150 ish

CDJapan does this too.

Yes, you will be waiting for Milia to be released before they'll ship Max. I've had to cancel an order with them once because I accidentally combined something that was in stock and something I was pre-ordering and had to wait for the pre-order to release. I also had a problem where I made an order with two pre-orders that were released at different times and I had to wait for the second pre-order to release before the first would ship out.

So why not inform them to release the item already?

Any one here use Toku Taku toys? I was preordering a Milia 1j from them but at the payment process i had to back out to correct a funds issue with paypal. Toku taku sent out the order confirmation email to my email which flagged it as "the sender has failed our fraud detection check and may not be who they say they are". So i'm dubious on proceeding with this order now. Anyone else dealt with these guys before?

Why not talk with or PayPal first?

Close shave! Just got my Max from hlj. Hopefully, Roy will be next.

still looks like the pilots from the 1/100 HM-R Valks are too big.. shame Bandai didn't make the cockpit closer to the line art. But its no big deal.

Is that even possible with that scale? The detail that is.